New Jersey Gun Stores Reopened After State of Emergency Shutdown
Richard Moorhead
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Gun stores in the state of New Jersey are free to reopen for business as of Wednesday, with the state’s Governor rescinding an order that they had to be closed as a part of the state’s Chinese coronavirus state of emergency declaration.
Governor Phil Murphy announced gun stores would be free to re-open at a Monday press conference. The change in policy follows a declaration by the Trump administration that firearms retail and manufacturing businesses are to be considered “essential” under Department of Homeland Security guidelines.
Murphy took a shot at the DHS guidelines, stating that considering firearms businesses essential “wouldn’t be my definition, but that’s the definition at the federal level and I didn’t get a vote on that.” He had earlier argued against the notion of lawful firearms ownership at a coronavirus press conference, stating that “a safer society for my taste has fewer guns and not more guns.”
New Jersey is the latest pro-gun control state that has overridden orders that gun retailers and manufacture close. Gun stores in Los Angeles County are finally reopening following a prolonged back-and-forth battle between the county government and county sheriff Alex Villanueva, with the sheriff now being removed as the county disaster executive authority.
The New Jersey state police had stopped conducting background checks for firearms transfers when Murphy originally ordered gun stores closed on March 21st, essentially shutting down the lawful commerce of firearms throughout the entire state. New Jersey has quite possibly the most draconian anti-gun rights laws in the country, routinely being ranked among the worst states for Second Amendment protections.
Americans have rushed to lawfully acquire firearms since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic in the country. Gun and ammo retailers have reported that they’ve sold out of guns and commonly used calibers of ammunition. There’s probably not much more anti-gun states and municipalities could do to erode trust in their authority than to arbitrarily dictate that their citizens cannot acquire guns.
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